


Enough

by rahleeyah



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28895241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahleeyah/pseuds/rahleeyah
Summary: Written for the Jeanuary Big Bang on tumblr, prompt is: Christopher. The night before her wedding, Jean receives an unexpected visitor.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Enough

Jean couldn't sleep. There was nothing unexpected about that; she'd known when she laid her head down on her pillow no rest would come for her tonight. Everything she owned in the world was gathered in a battered leather travelling case at the foot of her bed, everything except the old flannel nightgown she wore and the blue dress hanging inside the wardrobe she shared with her sister Edie. The blue dress had belonged to her mother, but Jean had spent the last fortnight altering it to fit her own lithe frame, trying to make it beautiful. Other girls had prettier dresses, newer dresses, made by professional seamstresses in town, but this dress was _Jean's_ , and it was what she meant to wear when the next chapter of her life began.

A soft _tap tap tap_ on the window startled her from her anxious musings, and her eyes flew open, meeting her sister's gaze on the other side of the bed they shared. They both knew what it meant, who had come tapping on their window so late in the evening; the sisters shared everything, and kept no secrets from one another.

"I won't tell," Edie whispered. All of sixteen Edie was prone to churlishness and bouts of bitter jealousy, and she had more than once tattled about Jean's comings and goings to their parents as payback for some perceived slight. None of that mattered now, of course; everything had changed.

"Thank you," Jean whispered back, and then she rolled out of bed, padded across the room on silent feet and threw back the ragged curtain on the window, revealing their late night visitor on the other side of the mottled glass. Christopher, his face all but lost in darkness, clutching a bouquet of wildflowers in his hands. Jean sighed and flung the window open at once, clambering out to join him as she had done so many times before. If she closed the window behind her she'd be locked out, but she didn't want to let in a draft, to chill Edie who was now alone in their old sagging bed, and so she pulled it as close as she dared.

"You shouldn't be here," she told him, crossing her arms over her chest, shivering in the night air.

Christopher grinned, and handed her the flowers before pulling the jacket from his own back, wrapping it round her shoulders as she stood in front of him, holding that bundle he'd picked just for her. Likely a few of their neighbors might notice missing blooms come the next morning, but it was a sweet gesture nonetheless.

"I'm not supposed to see you the day of the wedding," he answered, "but they didn't say anything about the night before."

"You goose." Her feet were cold, bare on the hard-packed dirt, but Christopher's jacket took the worst of the chill off her, and smelled like him in a comforting sort of way. "Papa will skin you alive if he finds you here."

"He won't and you know it, Jeannie. Too late for that." Christopher's grin was mischievous, but Jean's own heart was too heavy for such banter. It was too late for everything, now. Too late to get a job at a fine shop in town, and save her shillings for travels abroad. Too late to move to Melbourne, and start a grand adventure. Too late for a long engagement and a fairytale wedding at the end of it. There would be no more sunny afternoons rolling in the hayloft of Christopher's parents' barn; in five months' time they'd have a baby, and the clock was ticking fast, counting down the seconds until everything would change, again. Come the morning Jean would put on her best blue dress and carry her traveling case to her father's car, ride with her parents to Sacred Heart for a brief ceremony, and then transfer her belongings and herself into Christopher's care. They'd ride together to the farm his grandfather had left for him, the little house that was to pass to him on the day he wed, and they would be alone, together, forever. _At least until this little one comes along,_ she thought.

"You look sad, Jeannie." His voice was anxious; he was as nervous about the state of things as she was, and she knew it. All their lives they had been the best of friends, meeting at the edge of the fenceline that separated his parents' farm from hers, sharing secrets and stories. When Papa's hand grew heavy, when Mama's cough grew unbearable to her ears, she would race through the fields of lettuce and soybeans until she reached the fence, clamber over it and run past startled looking cattle until she found him, and every time she did his smile made her feel better, somehow. Safe. They were twelve the first time he brought her flowers, thirteen the first time he held her hand, fourteen the first time he kissed her, seventeen the first time those kisses turned into something more. Good fortune had been on their side for a time, but she was nineteen now, and pregnant, and this boy who owned so much of her past would now own her future, too. It was a blessing that she trusted him, loved him, and she knew it; things could have been so much worse. They could have been better, too, but there was no use wasting time on dreams of what might have been.

"It's a big change, that's all," she said, dropping her gaze to stare at her toes, stained from the dirt. She'd have to remember to wipe off her feet before she got back into bed with Edie.

"It'll be grand, you'll see," Christopher told her. He reached for her then, impulsive and affectionate as he always was, wrapped his arms around her and drew her in close. He was warm and solid, steady, smelled of grass and wood smoke, and she buried her face against his chest and let him hold her. For most of their lives she'd been the taller of the pair, but just last year he'd hit his final growth spurt, and stood so tall that her head fit comfortably beneath his chin. She liked that rather more than she wanted to admit.

"Just you and me, in our own house, no parents, no rules," he continued in a dreamy sort of voice. "We can eat whatever we like and dance whenever we like and no one can keep us apart. We can make whatever sort of life we want."

Except they couldn't, not really, and Christopher knew that as well as she did. He'd have to work his fingers to the bone, day after day, trying to get their new farm up and running, trying to make enough money to keep them afloat. He could grow enough for them to eat, but clothes and nappies didn't grow on trees, and the bank wouldn't accept chickens as repayment for the loans he'd taken out to buy equipment and seeds. They'd have to keep petrol in the old car he'd bought, and Jean would need fabric to sew new clothes for herself, as most of the ones she had now barely fit, and wouldn't fit at all in a months' time. And when the baby came they'd need all sorts of things; Mama had already promised Jean could have the old wooden cradle from her own childhood days, but that was only the start. The course of their life had already been decided, and there would be no stopping it.

"I do want to be married to you," Jean told him, for she did, if not like this. She'd imagined a bright, beautiful wedding, a wonderful party afterwards, imagined holding his hand as they walked through unfamiliar streets, exploring the whole world together. That dream was beyond her now; she'd have him, but not the adventure. She'd never wanted one without the other, and she didn't quite know what to make of it now that the two had been so neatly cleaved.

"I know you don't want to live on the farm forever," he said, tightening his grip upon her as if he sensed her urge to flee. "We don't have to, Jeannie. We'll have a few lean years, maybe, but if we work hard we can save up enough, and we can do whatever we like. And in the meantime we'll be together, always. That's good, isn't it?"

Jean lifted her chin and looked up into his dear, sweet face. That tumble of dark hair, those bright blue eyes, dancing with affection, the scruffy beard just beginning to cover his cheeks; he was, still and always, the most beautiful boy she'd ever seen, and she did love him. Loved him desperately, loved him madly, loved him for being the only safe haven she'd found in a life that had been hard and cruel, at times. She loved him for his dreams, for the promises he'd made to her, and she tried her best to forget the ones he'd broken. Maybe he was right; maybe if he worked hard, maybe if she took on work as a seamstress and sold her knitting and her baked goods at the market, maybe they'd make enough to dig themselves out of this hole, and start again somewhere else. Maybe if she just believed in him, they could take their little family far away from here, the way she'd always wanted.

More likely, though, this baby would be followed by another, and another, Jean tied to her house like the other farmwives in town, and all those mouths to feed would mean more work for Christopher, and their paltry savings would be spent on shoes and repairs for the equipment and they'd make it no farther than their parents had done, scratching out a living in the dirt until they died and passed it all off to their children, starting the whole thing up again. A shiver ran down Jean's spine that had nothing at all to do with the chill night air, and she hid her gaze from his face, not wanting him to know that she doubted him.

"I love you," she whispered. She did love him, had always loved him. Wasn't that supposed to be enough? All the old stories, the fairytales and the books she devoured in the local library and the films she got to see on special occasions, they were all about love, defying the odds. They always ended with the lovers together, and happy. If her life was a story it would end tomorrow, she and Christopher happy and free, starting off on their own together. No one ever told stories about what happened next; what became of Cinderella, after she wed the prince? Did she argue with her inlaws, and worry about how she'd pay for a new dress to wear to the next ball? Did she look at her prince and wonder, sometimes, if he'd grow as bitter and resentful as his father? There were no fairytales about that; no one had told Jean what happened next. Maybe, she thought, it was because they knew it was better if she didn't learn the truth. No until the thing was done.

"And you know I love you, Jeannie. I love you more than anything in the whole world. And when I think about you holding our baby, I feel like the luckiest bastard who ever lived. I know it isn't what you wanted, not now, anyway, but Jeannie...that's our little girl in there." His hand slipped between them, brushed against the softness of her belly. Christopher remained convinced that Jean was carrying a girl, and his insistence on it delighted her too much for her to protest. "That's our little girl, and she's here because we love each other. Every time we look at her we'll remember how much we love each other. And whatever it takes, however hard it is, I'll do everything I can to make sure my girls have the best that I can give them."

He meant it, she knew. He might lose a week's earnings in a game of two-up, and he might take out a loan he could never afford to pay back, and he might oversleep and miss a day's work when they could ill afford it, but he would still be trying his best, and she knew she could ask no more of him. She could no more change him than she could pull the moon down from the sky; she knew what he was, and she loved him, flaws and all, for he loved her the same.

"It's all going to be all right," he told her.

"I know," she answered. "It will be, because I've got you."

Whatever came next, however hard it might be, however much it might differ from the life she'd dreamed of, Christopher would be with her, and surely, she thought, that would make all the difference. Two strong arms to hold her, and his gentle voice to comfort her, and his solid strength beside her, every moment of every day, he would be enough for her. It would be enough, she told herself, to have a home of her own, a place where no one else could tell her how to live, where she could raise her babies any way she chose, and fall asleep beside him every night, no longer searching the pastures for him and running from their fathers. It would be enough; it had to be enough.


End file.
